Rift Valley representatives, St. Anthony’s Boys Kitale stormed into the Copa U20 semi-final in style after thrashing North Eastern’s Banisa High School 6-0 in a pool A match played at Kisumu Boys secondary school on Wednesday afternoon.
Having won their opening match against Shimba Hills on Tuesday, the Saints needed to win to book a semis slot and they did it in style mauling their opponents who couldn’t match them in the entire game.
Saints coach Peter Mayoyo opted to rest some of his key players against the minnows ahead of Thursday crunch match against Olbolsat. Christopher Raila, David Musamali, Geoffrey Onjuati, Saenyi Elly were all rested with Issa Lumumba, Daniel Odhiambo, Answar Shamuni all from the U16 team starting.
They started the game strongly and in the 12th minute they went ahead through Woodvine Okoth’s well-curled leftfoot effort from the right flank.
They continued raiding in search of more goals but wastefulness saw them throw away numerous chances.
The second goal finally came in the 35th minute through Issa Lumumba who unleashed a ferocious shot from the left side of the area. A third followed three minutes later through Okoth whose half-volley found the back of the net.
Things went from bad to worse for Banisa when Lumumba got his second with another shot from the edge of the area in the 40th minute. The Kitale based school took a 4-0 lead to the break.
The Saints started the second half with speed , raiding the North Eastern side in search of more goals. Captain Tyson Kapchanga nearly made it 5 two minutes into the second half but his dummy was well read by Banisa keeper Mohamed Noorow.
A rare attack from Banisa in the 58th minute nearly yielded a goal but Yusuf Ali failed to make take his chance following an error from Saints keeper Daniel Wamalwa, his shot went narrowly wide.
St. Anthony’s finally got a fifth in the 75th through Answar Shamuni who fired home after being teed up by skipper Tyson Kapchanga. Substitute Kennedy Mwendwa added a sixth in the 87th minute with a thunderous shot from a Jacob Onyango cutback to complete the rout.
St. Anthony’s will play Olbolsat in their final group game on Thursday while the already eliminated Banisa will take on Shimba Hills.